The CAA Conference in Sudbury (July 2002) was a success; you should have been there. But by the time we were full-swing into the Conference with any hope of shortly catching up the rest of my life, the 2002 Canadian Writers' Contest Calendar landed in the mail. The last one I had seen was sixteen pages, stapled in the corner; unpretentious, useful, and very much in tune with the work we were already doing here for the Market Notes in the CWJ. What landed was 80 pages thick, crammed full of contest and award information, and the announcement on page 2 that we were publishing the 2003 edition.

Eighteen months before, I had looked at the Canadian Writers' Contest Calendar project and placed my name to be considered to take it over. It made sense; the market information needed for the CWCC and the CWJ overlapped in a great many places. Actually it still does make sense and it is starting to produce the effects I had foreseen. But it changed the whole year. To effectively continue the CWCC it had to be compiled and out for November 2002. There were over 426 lines in the database that had to be confirmed and collated. Without the internet, it never would have happened.

The Market Notes section in the CWJ, starting with this issue, will contain a lot of what is in the Canadian Writers' Contest Calendar, plus the information and calls for submission that do not fit into the parameters of the Contest Calendar. We have chosen not to include many of the book awards in the CWJ, and we do include international markets that arise. Between the two, there should be a variety of market information of use to our readers.

The sheer size of the project also forced a re-evaluation of our focus here. We've drastically scaled back our time commitments, and our health seems to be improving. 2003 should run a little more smoothly. The continuing publications we have here the Canadian Writer's Journal and Canadian Writers' Contest Calendar, will take most of our time we have here, and we have scaled back on our book publishing program.

I would like to point out that every Canadian writer says we need a magazine, but every independent print magazine for Canadian writers that I have known about for the last twenty years has folded for lack of support. Even literary magazines such as the Amethyst Review, which I considered to be almost a cultural icon, have ceased publication. The CWJ has had its rough spots and delays, but is still here after nineteen years. And many people have remarked on the improvements in content and design. So we continue, and try to do what is possible to serve the readers who have been so loyal.

We hope you enjoy the selection of articles and poetry we have assembled for you, and hope you'll stay tuned for the duration.